reed-bachmannStillwater-area physician Maureen Reed’s possible run at removing U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann from her job in 2010 may be seen by some as a case of no good deed going unpunished. As a state senator in 2003, Bachmann helped Reed keep her (non-paying) post as a University of Minnesota regent.

Reed served on the U of M’s Board of Regents from 1997 to 2005, two of those years as chair. But in 2003 legislators in her congressional district recommended replacing Reed with John Frobenius, a St. Cloud hospital executive (since retired) who was re-elected as a regent this year.

Reed stayed on only after Jean Keffeler, an at-large regent, got booted in the middle of her term. The state Legislature had never ratified her 2001 appointment by Gov. Jesse Ventura.

Bachmann led the effort to keep Reed, nominating her for Keffeler’s former at-large seat. “It would be a shame to lose Dr. Reed’s talents and tenacity on the Board of Regents,” Bachmann said in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

A Bachmann-Reed contest in 2010 would test both women’s tenacity. And it’d be a shame, but one of them would have to lose.